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Audemars Piguet continues to explore high-tech materials
New Models

Audemars Piguet continues to explore high-tech materials

Sunday, 21 February 2010
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Christophe Roulet
Editor-in-chief, HH Journal

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4 min read

The launch of the Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix will be the year’s big event for the Le Brassus firm. This collection, proposed as three limited editions, confirms the brand as a master of high-tech materials.

The first Formula 1 Grand Prix of the season, beginning March 12th in Bahrain, will be a red-letter date for Audemars Piguet, as this is when the brand will officially launch its new Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix collection of three limited-edition models: 1,750 in forged carbon, 650 in rose gold and 75 in platinum.

“For our 2010 launches, we decided to concentrate on our flagship collections and the models that best convey our values of tradition, excellence and daring,” Philippe Merck, CEO, explains. “As one of our great classics, the Royal Oak is clearly one such model as it prepares to celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2012, as are the Jules Audemars collections. One of the ways we are expressing this all-important daring is to have incorporated an equation of time into the Royal Oak. We are also launching the Grand Prix version which trains the spotlight on our research into high-tech materials. This will, without any doubt, be the brand’s most important launch this year.”

Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix Collection: 18-carat pink gold case, forged carbon and black ceramic bezel, pink gold crown, black ceramic and pink gold pushpieces, carbon pushpiece guards, pink gold exhibition case-back fitted with a sapphire crystal– Li
Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix Collection: 18-carat pink gold case, forged carbon and black ceramic bezel, pink gold crown, black ceramic and pink gold pushpieces, carbon pushpiece guards, pink gold exhibition case-back fitted with a sapphire crystal– Li
A forged carbon hallmark

Presented as a model that combines complex forms with high-tech materials to best embody the powerful ties between watchmaking and automobiles, the Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix (cal. 3126/3840) was two years in development, notably for the two ceramic and forged carbon openwork rings that make up the bezel. Forged carbon is now a hallmark of Audemars Piguet. “Forged carbon was the deliberate choice for this collection,” comments the brand. “This ultra-light and resistant material – the Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix in forged carbon weighs a scant 120 grams – has been exclusively developed by Audemars Piguet from the manufacturing process to the tools. The sophisticated shapes of the Royal Oak Offshore are achieved thanks to a special mould.”

A bundle of carbon filaments are placed inside the mould. A single filament measuring just a millimetre in diameter is itself composed of several thousand, seven-micron carbon fibres, held together by a resin wire. The case middle of the Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph requires filaments totalling 12.5 grams. Placed end to end, they are equivalent to 22.2 metres of carbon filament and 99.7 km of carbon fibre. The mould is compressed at high temperature at pressures of over 300 kilos per square centimetre.

Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix Collection: 950 platinum, forged carbon and black ceramic bezel, white gold crown, black ceramic and white gold pushpieces, carbon pushpiece guards, platinum exhibition case-back fitted with a sapphire crystal – Limited edi
Royal Oak Offshore Grand Prix Collection: 950 platinum, forged carbon and black ceramic bezel, white gold crown, black ceramic and white gold pushpieces, carbon pushpiece guards, platinum exhibition case-back fitted with a sapphire crystal – Limited edi
Anticipating a slight increase in revenues

So as to seduce buyers as the economy emerges from a crisis that shook the very foundations of the branch – “a serious, global crisis that has been more detrimental than those linked to the bursting of the Internet bubble or SARS,” in Philippe Merck’s words – Audemars Piguet has chosen to review its entry-level range, which now proposes a Royal Oak Offshore Diver at less than CHF 20,000 (€13,600) and even a Jules Audemars Perpetual Calendar at CHF 65,000 (€44,200). More importantly, the brand has China firmly in its sights.

“Naturally we intend developing the brand across all the international markets,” Philippe Merck continues. “In China, we’re still at the very beginning of the process. We began last year by moving in-house our activities in the country and now we are looking to extend our network, possibly with own-name stores. China is the only country where we are envisaging this type of development. We currently have 19 points of sale under the Audemars Piguet name. However, our objective is more to strengthen ties with our retailers, many of whom are family firms, like Audemars Piguet. Having said that, over the next five years we must build up our presence in China and in doing so invest for the future.”

The Le Brassus firm is banking on a slight increase in production in 2010 (around 25,000 watches a year) to offset the lower average price of models sold and end the financial year with a small increase in revenues. As Philippe Merck concludes, “We have to be realistic. It’s too soon to be talking about recovery but we are doing everything to make Audemars Piguet, a company with 135 years behind it, the brand of years to come.”

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